The retirement of an IBM legend — Bob Picciano — and a blueprint for true leadership
Think of your greatest heroes and heroines, your most inspirational role models. Perhaps you are inspired by great artists, athletes, business leaders, or scholars — all can provide great nourishment for the mind. I am lucky; my list includes a now former boss of mine, but forever mentor and friend, Bob Picciano. To me, Bob is like a superhero with a commitment to work, friends, and family that knows no bounds. Bob is an inspiring and fearless leader — I’d have to ask his mom, but I’m quite certain as a toddler he boldly go into the basement and not even turn on the lights! When he was carrying the weight of the world (or business) on his shoulders … you just saw positivity and optimism.
Good leaders think positively even when things go bad.
I felt compelled to blog about Bob today — so as to offer others that know him a chance to comment and leave their own remarks such that this icon might have a permanent record to remind him how he’s touched so many lives here at IBM and inspired so many.
My musings here may seem somewhat nostalgic. And while I can’t wait to see how the next chapter reads in the “Book of Life — The Bob Picciano Edition”, as I’ve often said, nostalgia is the perfect cocktail of great memories with a shot of sadness and a touch of regret … and that so perfectly reflects how I’m feeling right now.
Nostalgia is the prefect cocktail of great memories with a shot of sadness and a touch of regret.
I’ve known Bob from his time as a young leader all the way to an industry veteran with his grey GQ beard (what I like to tell him was the original fifty shades of grey)— in fact, at retirement (today) he held a position that just 0.00004% of this ~365,000 person company attain! Today, Bob is retiring from IBM after a storied 35+ year career which includes world-class incredible achievements few can ever imagine, let alone achieve.
The first meet: Bob Picciano swipes right on Paul Zikopoulos
There’s a musing from (now retired 4 star general) Colin Powell about leadership where he says “People follow great leaders if only out of curiosity alone” — it so perfectly describes the first conversation I ever had with Bob when he moved from the USA to run the IBM Canada Development Lab in Toronto.
At that time, I had just published my first book (#Db2 for Dummies) and Bob had just taken over the business. Somehow this book ended up in his hands and Bob requested a meet in the cafeteria — this request had me pretty scared, I mean I never talked to an exec before! He pleasantly introduced himself, but his first business question was “How did you publish this book?” I told him how I paid for my own ticket to New York City for a face-to-face meeting with the IDC/Hungry Minds acquisitions editor (including a hardcopy book outline with food stains) and won the publisher’s buy in. He loved the story. He told me he wanted to foster my entrepreneurial spirit, and then he shared his viewpoints on leadership and a vision for IBM, the products we worked on, and (he said) “most importantly, the people that work on them.” This encounter set forth a path to what I’ve become today — at minimum, let’s just say I was curious about this guy.
“People follow great leaders if only out of curiosity alone.” Colin Powell
I don’t have the time, but I always have time for my people
As Bob rose through the ranks, he always made time for anyone — I saw it first hand. While it’s fair to note I had a mentor/mentee relationship with him, I would see him do round tables and even take requests from leaders to have conversations with new recruits or people planning to leave IBM; quite simply, Bob is the charisma and energy guy that wins people over.
Bob starts any conversation asking you how things are going and how your family is doing. If he senses (you don’t even have to say it) something is up, he will probe; there’ve been times when we didn’t even get to the business problem because we were fixing something else — that had to do with my feeling or stress I was under. In short, he has a way of making you feel special.
And look, there were times where I messed stuff up … and I got ‘owned’ (as the kids say); but ironically the feeling walking away from such a meeting wasn’t that I was ridiculed or beat up (because I wasn’t), it was I can do better — I wanted to do better. That’s a special talent few leaders have. This virtue has come to be known as the “Bob Picciano Jedi Mind Trick.” When you screw up, but somehow you end up leaving that call happy on cloud nine. “Paul…man, you got this one wrong, but why don’t you go and try this or frame it in another way, like this…” I’d love to learn that skill. Like I said, it’s a superhero trait — I hope Bob uses this force wisely, and for good.
Bob is mindful: the kind of guy that will do anything for anyone: it doesn’t matter your hierarchal position in the company — he’s always willing to help someone out, be a mentor, be someone in a time of need, and more.
Heres’s a great memory I have that illustrates so well the team player Bob is and how he cared for people in the organizations he ran. He and I were at a big CIO golf tournament at Whistling Straits. Bob’s driving us back to fly out of Milwaukee airport and I realize I left my laptop at the hotel (how embarrassing). I figure I would just cab it back from the airport and fly home the next day. Bob would have none of it. Bob detours back to the hotel and drives like James Hunt to get me on my flight.
It’s the “why” part I’ll never forget. Now, keep in mind here I’m still quite a junior employee, I’m a no one that this executive makes feel like a someone (as he so often does). I had a newborn at home (Chloë) and Bob (he knows a past I won’t get into here) says “Paul, I don’t want you to miss a night you don’t need to miss with your new girl.”
We get to the airport and now Bob is in grave danger of missing his flight; he doesn’t drive us to the rental car return for a sprint to our respective gates … he drops me off Arrivals — I tried to stop it … even argued about it, he told me he’d fire me if I put up a fight — lol.
In the end (somehow) we both made it home that night, but Bob was willing to do anything to help — he had no time but always made the time for his people. (Perhaps an urban legend, but there are reports that Bob got pulled over by a cop as he looped around to return the rental car and he let the traffic cop off with just a warning.)
Bob knows that a tomato is a fruit, but has the wisdom to not put it in a fruit salad
It’s not hard to imagine how after so many years in the industry, with so many experiences, Bob is an encyclopedia (if you’re under 25, I put a link so you know what this is) of knowledge when it comes to leadership. His teachings have helped develop me not just as a leader, but as a person, too. Bob’s wisdom and knowledge are freely shared and I thought I’d share just a smidgen of those learnings here.
The first thing Bob told me when I became an executive was to never stray from the very things he liked about me. Always learn, because learning never ends. He’d told me never compromise on trust — earn and maintain the trust of your people, so even if things go wrong (or you have to make tough decisions) your organization and people will be better off because of trust.
To this day, I tell my daughter, “You lose trust in buckets and gain it in droplets. What kind of bucket do you want to carry?”
From a position of trust, all great leaders can lead. You see, good leaders don’t just have a vision of where to take their organizations, they have to take those organizations with them — trust and genuine care is how you do that.
Another tip Bob gave me as being key to great leadership was to give everyone a voice and assure them it’s a safe voice. While this advice has become cornerstones of inclusiveness and inclusivity today, he was on this point from the very first time I saw him in action … decades ago.
Bob is quite direct in this instruction, “If leaders stop listening, eventually their workers stop talking.” To this very day I see great leaders and bad leaders (at IBM and outside — no company is immune) — the bad leaders always have a ‘lack of trust’ and ‘not listening’ in their denominator.
Bob’s advice:
“Paul, ensure everyone knows they have a voice and an opinion; you will hear everyone, no matter rank, and then make a decision. You will then (i) go with your decision and know the arguments against your position, (ii) change your course of action and go with the other points, or (iii) do some hybrid (it’s usually this). But your people will always have been heard and that’s more important to people than getting their way.”
There’s so much more, but culture was the other thing he shared with me — it’s important to live it from day one. What the organizations you lead will be known for matters more than your imagination can realize right now — get them known for excellence.
Things to know if you work with Bob
As I close out this blog, remember some of these things that make Bob … well … Bob:
- Bob loves to go fast — driving a car, a boat, skiing (my lord he is fast on skis), running a business, moving resources for the right reasons … hold on tight and enjoy the ride.
- Bob is competitive as anything and hates to lose — in business and in personal competition. I always remember one of his lines, “I don’t like the term marketshare… it implies I’m planning to share it.” (As an aside, never — and I mean never — take him up on his “Bet you can’t drink a gallon of milk” bet.)
- Bob is mindful and dedicated … in everything he does and to the people he does it with. If you work with him … you need to make trust and integrity your denominator … if you’re not willing to do that, find someone else to work for.
- Bob is brilliant — there are times where he is too brilliant. For example, one day I was telling Bob about something that didn’t work out on something that had nothing to do with work … and six minutes later we’re now into the chemical compound that makes up this particular item. In other words, if you’re a fisherman telling stories, be careful because Bob probably knows the fish.
- Bob is … well Bob — there are very few of him in the world.
What’s with all the bold, dude?
AI uses numbers for pretty much everything … computer vision, natural language processing … all numbers behind the scenes. For example, this is a face recognition program I built to recognize Bob Picciano.
Companies like Facebook use a technique called facial embeddings to quickly figure out who is who and auto-tag them on your posts with name suggestions. (Remember when you used to have to tag your friends on Facebook, as it turned out, they learned who we all are so you don’t have to do it anymore; I’m not saying that’s a good thing.)
You know when people say “A picture is worth a 1000 words” … it’s really a thousand numbers — well, 128 … this is Bob’s 128 point vector — his virtual ‘faceprint’ if you will:
This stuff is so accurate it can stay with you for a lifetime … because this is the same vector applied to an older picture I have of Bob … scary accurate right?
I mean even if Bob decided to buy a motorcycle, become a biker, and grow a retirement beard, then braid it … this vector will find him
In this blog I bolded a bunch of words … this is my vector for a tremendous leader … it’s Bob’s virtual leadership fingerprint for what he selflessly dedicated a large part of his life to — IBM, and even more so, its people. You can use this vector to find incredible leadership … and now you know who it’s modelled after.
So as my boss, friend, and mentor moves into a new chapter in his life; as he decides that next great things he will do, as I take stock in how he shaped me, I bid you the best dear friend … and raise a COVID virtual glass to toast all the experiences we’ve had that (one day) I will never remember, with someone I will never forget.
A toast: Here’s to all the experiences we’ve had that (one day) I will never remember, with someone I will never forget.
Today is Canada Day — a national holiday where I live. Aside from spending time with family on this day off, I could think of no other thing I wanted to do then spend a couple of hours penning this blog and taking a trip down memory lane; and oh what a trip it was.
